


All I Want Is A Room Somewhere

by liseuse



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-02
Updated: 2010-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-09 21:12:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liseuse/pseuds/liseuse





	1. Arrivals

It was the 23rd of June when Pansy was finally rounded on by Potter, after a disastrous raid on what was supposed to be a Death Eater safe-house. Potter was convinced that someone had sold them out and all his suspicions had landed on those who had defected from the Death Eaters or old Pureblood families. Pansy found herself standing, back to the kitchen surface, a mug of coffee in her hand and a cigarette burning away in the ashtray on the table as Harry railed at her and accused her or one of her friends, a word he spat out with the venom she associated with her father saying anti-capitalist, of deliberately sending Order members into an unsafe situation and spying on them so that they could sell their secrets to Voldemort and buy their way back into his service.

"Oh for fuck's sake, Potter," Pansy snapped, slamming her mug down so hard beside her that coffee jumped out and splattered onto the floor. "Why in the name of Circe would I sell you out? Do I have to remind you, once again, that I am a member of this shambles of an organisation? That I signed your bloody oath and swore in front of the entire Order that I wouldn't betray you, that I'd rather die than help that group of morons running around the countryside murdering people? Yes, my family is old and Pureblood and probably sympathises more with Voldemort than your incompetent cadre, yes I was in Slytherin, yes I have a sneaky sort of mind and I want to succeed in life. Do pardon me for all that please, but also remember that I am here and that I have been fighting with you and for you for a very long time, that I have the scars to prove it and that I am in no way marked." Holding out her arm, she pulled her sleeve up and thrust it into Harry's face. "See? Or are you so blind that you can't see I'm here to help? Because I don't have to be. I have family in Belgium. I can join them any time I wish. You do not actually have to feel the benefits of my strategies or my ability to complete complicated arithmantical formulas. I can leave again, and send you right back to your pointless little existence which relied on the abilities of Muggle-borns and the black sheep of Pureblood families for all of the above."

"Well, why don't you?" Harry stood, belligerent and stony-faced. "Why are you here in the first place? What made you join us? Not exactly your natural habitat is it?"

"I have explained this to you a thousand times, Potter." Pansy stood a little straighter and walked forwards so that Harry had to back off. "I am here because I have nothing against all the legions of people which make up a very small wizarding community, because I object to that upstart thinking he can rule the world, and because at some point I would like the world to revert to some semblance of normality. I used to have this theory that I would leave school, go and work for the Ministry solving arithmantical problems for them, would have a nice house somewhere, settle down and live a perfectly normal life. And then it all got shot to shit. So I am here, because I like to believe that I can get my dream back. And if it means helping the side of the terminally self-absorbed and dim-witted, well, so be it."

"I still don't trust you." Harry sneered slightly and roughly pulled a chair out from the kitchen table. "However," he grated out, sounding as if he was having his teeth pulled, "you are better at tactics than Hermione."

"I'm glad my abilities are appreciated." Pansy curled half her mouth up in what could loosely have been termed a smile, and grabbing her coffee, pulled another chair out. "Now, can we get back to the business of trying to kill some of these bastards?"

 

The 27th of January had fallen on a Tuesday the year that Pansy decided that enough was enough and she would give up hiding out in the family home and join the Side of Light, Annoyance and possibly Fluffy Kittens. She hadn't intended to hide out exactly, but a family background of money, privilege and generations of Slytherin sortings had left her a little wary of doing much else. The Wizarding world was attempting to run in some form of normality, but it didn't seem to extend to those who had been friends in school with a Malfoy, a Goyle and a Crabbe - all families known for their allegiances to the darker side of politics. Personally Pansy found it all a little annoying; her family were as pureblood as they came but had declined, politely, any and all invitations to join Voldemort's coterie, preferring profitable alliances with Goblins and the big banking families to petty squabbles over who happened to be best suited to running the world. As her father had once pointed out, a family which maintained ties with the big Muggle private banking institutions was hardly likely to be excruciatingly welcome, though the chance of an excruciating welcome was not to be underestimated. Therefore Pansy, tired with the family home and her mother's insistence on pretending all was normal, carefully packed her belongings, called in a favour from Hestia and apparated to the doorstep of 12 Grimmauld Place. Instantly she could feel the jangling of magic inside the house and what was undoubtedly the alarm system, a system so laughable she had trouble maintaining a straight face as Professor Lupin and a short squat wizard whose nose seemed vaguely familiar appeared, wands drawn and battle faces on.

"Peace. Peace. I come in peace." Pansy attempted not to drawl, and put down her suitcase so she could hold her hands out in front of her. "No weapons, no ulterior motives." Pulling up her sleeves she showed them both her arms. "Not even a Dark Mark."

"Good day, Miss Parkinson." Lupin smiled confusedly. "May I ask what you are doing here?"

"I thought you might need some help, Professor. Circe knows you lot appear to be relying on complete idiots to find targets, and that's taking The Prophet with several thousand grains of salt. How many Purebloods do you have working for you? Exactly?"

"As if we're going to tell you that, missy." The short squat wizard glared at her, and then turned to glare pointedly at Lupin.

"He does have a point, I'm afraid." Remus smiled apologetically. "It would be bad form to give away secrets, after all."

"Then let me guess. There's the endless number of Weasleys, but they're rather the black sheep of that line, which is rather a shame given that the Prewetts used to be a fine family. I assume Susan Bones is helping you. And I suppose Morag might be helping you as well, but her talents rather lie in Ancient Runes." Pansy stood and pretended to think for a while. "Oh, that would rather seem to be it, wouldn't it. Gracious. And how many purebloods do you think the other side has? Because I'd hazard a guess that it's considerably more."

"And?" demanded the short wizard belligerently.

"And," Pansy used the same tone of voice she'd used to use on particularly dim first years, "they all know each other and how their minds work, and all of the locations of various houses. Which rather means that you don't. I thought it might be helpful to have someone who has that information on hand. Think of me as the wizarding Debretts."

"How on earth do you know about Debretts?" Lupin looked a little confused and the short squat wizard continued to look antagonised. "I'd have thought it was rather too Muggle for you."

"Father does business with Coutts. On occasion it required we spent time in Muggle society. Debretts is therefore rather essential." Pansy rolled down her sleeves again. "Now will you run whatever infernal tests you need to and let me in through the door? It is significantly warmer here than at home, but still. London in January is not exactly the best time to be standing on a doorstep. Not to mention that with the suitcase I look like I'm trying to sell you something."

The short wizard turned to Lupin, and tiptoed to whisper something rapidly in his ear. Lupin nodded a few times and murmured something back. After a flurry of whispered comments and a lot of hand waving on the behalf of the squat man Lupin turned back to Pansy. "Well, obviously we can't let you in until we've done the tests. Could you hand over your wand, please?"

"If I must." Pansy flared her nostrils as she took it from its holster. "If you aren't careful with it you'll find out how effective a weapon a stiletto actually is. That wand was handmade in Paris and is exceedingly valuable."

"I will take as much care with it as I would my own," Lupin assured her, and handed it over to the shorter wizard who ran his wand over it, and drew a complicated sigil which began to glow green.

"Rosewood, a spine of maple, and oh, interesting! A thread of bergamot oil. This is a very nice wand, miss."

"Yes, yes. I am fully aware of that." Pansy huffed slightly. "But thank you for saying it. Wand craftsmanship is dying out distressingly. My sister is studying with Gregorovich currently."

"I can't find anything wrong with it, and I'm not detecting any signs of malevolent usage. Just normal household cleaning spells and a few minor stunning spells."

"We have mice at home." Pansy smiled a little apologetically. "It's easier to stun them and let them loose in the woods than it is to kill them and deal with more coming in for retribution. Something about those woods breeds dreadfully intelligent mice. No one wants to go far enough in to find out."

"Oh, the Grass Wood. Glad to see it's still got a reputation. Been years since I was back up there." The squat wizard stuck out his hand and shook Pansy's. "Bracewell. Hodgkiss Bracewell. My grandmother's from roundabouts that area." Seeing Remus's slightly distressed looking face, he added, "Now, now, Remus. This lass is from up round home. The Parkinsons have a decent reputation up there, the wand hasn't been up to anything funny, and she's right, you know. We could do with the help."

"Well, yes. But I'm sure there are other tests we could run." Remus sounded a little strangled.

"Can you think of any?" Bracewell looked enquiringly at Remus who had to shrug his shoulders and raise an eyebrow. "Thought not. This hasn't happened before," he confided to Pansy. "No one's actually come forward and said they wanted to help, most people felt a bit drafted in."

"Well, my best friend is off, presumably in hiding. Teddy has escaped to Switzerland, Circe only knows where Blaise is and Crabbe and Goyle have hideous moving snakes tattoed on their arms and besides that, if I have to spend one more week in the house with my mother pretending everything is fine, my father rabbiting on about how this is all very good for the commodity market and my sister whining about how her wedding might have to be cancelled I may go insane." Pansy smiled tightly and picked up her suitcase. "Now, may I come in?"


	2. Delays

It was the 3rd of February by the time anyone other than Bracewell, Lupin and Pansy were in Grimmauld Place. Predictably it was Potter that Pansy had to open the door to, and ask questions of. He was sensible enough to submit himself to the security checks first and begin raging second but somewhat unpredictably it was not Pansy he began to rail at immediately, but Lupin and Bracewell. She was left in the kitchen, making another of the endless pots of tea that had begun marking her day, smoking a cigarette and half-heartedly wondering if Lupin's mistranslation of one phrase in the Beniamin Minor was going to make a blind bit of difference to something that as far as she could see was entirely irrelevant anyway. From the drawing room she could hear Lupin's controlled diction, Bracewell's accent ratcheting up several thousand places as he got more irate and Potter's infernal yelling. Pansy considered knocking on the door with a tea tray in hand and depositing some soothing tea on the table, but decided against it. Potter, she thought, would only accuse her of trying to poison him. She had to admit there had been several times in Sixth Year that it had seemed a reasonable proposition; Draco had never let her in on what was making him such a distracted waif, but from his snooping on Potter and general hatred of him, she'd deduced that it probably had something to do with the orders of Voldemort, or more likely a desire to please his idiotic father. Pansy therefore had on occasion considered dropping something accidentally into Potter's pumpkin juice and then denying all knowledge of it. She doubted he even knew who she was beyond another of those 'damned Slytherins' and he wouldn't therefore be able to accurately denounce her. She also had a sneaking suspicion that if caught at the right moment, even Professor McGonagall would appreciate some respite from his general earnestness. As she was thinking on this and putting out an even number of sugar lumps onto a plate, the kitchen door burst open.

"Parkinson," Harry barked and then ignored her politely waved hand inviting him to sit at the table. "Look. I don't like you. I don't trust you. I don't want you in this house. But, apparently, we need your help. So, I suppose you can stay."

"Oh, thank you, Potter. I'll bear in mind your incredible generosity. If you check the desk in the library, that's the room with all the books, you'll find a plan of possible attack for certain Death Eater houses. I cannot guarantee they are still occupied, but I can, with some degree of certainty, tell you which formulas and potions and spells you will need to get in past the wards. I also noted down that no matter how much your organisation may depend upon them, you cannot take any Muggle-borns there and expect them to get past the wards. Trust me. They won't be able to and they'll be out of the field for a long time as Pomfrey attempts to heal them."

"How the fuck do you know that?" Harry stood, slouched against the table, and glared at Pansy as if he were wishing she'd spontaneously combust and save him the bother of even pretending to be polite.

"Language, Potter. I know that because I know these families. Also because Teddy tried to take Eleanor..." Seeing Harry's blank look Pansy broke off. "Eleanor. Eleanor Branstone. Hufflepuff? Tall, thin as a rake, long blonde hair, good at charms? No? Oh, honestly, Potter. Anyway, Teddy tried to take Eleanor to one of the Malfoy do's in the Easter holidays, I think it was fifth year, and just as she crossed the boundary, the poor girl was horribly afflicted with various dreadful jinxes."

"Huh." Harry stopped slouching and flung himself into a chair. Lupin rolled his eyes in the background.

"I remember Eleanor. Charming girl. Very good at charms in fact. Why on earth did Theodore take her to a Malfoy do?" As he spoke Remus moved around to the side of the table holding the tea-tray and poured himself a cup.

"He was trying to get into her knickers." Pansy smirked. "It worked, I believe. Besides, Teddy couldn't give two hoots about her being a Muggle-born, his sister is after all a Squib."

"If he couldn't give two hoots where the fuck is he then? Because I don't see him cluttering up my kitchen with you."

"Potter, if you glare like that much longer the wind will change and you'll be stuck. He's in Switzerland with his sister, avoiding his father no doubt. His father gives rather more than two hoots, but I suspect he's letting Teddy stay where he is because he adores his daughter. Yes, Potter, Death Eaters love their families too."

"I'll believe it when I fucking see it," Harry grouched and picked up a sugar cube. Picking it to pieces he relaxed his face a little and turned to Remus. "Look, what precisely is she going to help with?" The tone of his 'she' rather seemed to imply that Pansy was no better than a slug, and Lupin raised an eyebrow in a manner familiar to Pansy from Defence lessons.

"She is the cat's mother. Pansy will be helping devise plans, much like the one she informed you earlier was on your desk. And apparently she'll be correcting my translations as well." Lupin pulled his parchment towards him and nodded. "Ah yes, I see. Not that it makes much difference. The damn document is of no use whatsoever."

"Yes, I rather understood that. Still, sloppy translations do no one any good. It might be of interest to someone after the war and if the translation is already done then you've saved them a job. A very tedious job."

"Yeah, yeah. Very good." Harry interrupted, "So plans and taking up space. That's it?"

"No, Potter, that is not it. Plans which are of far more use to you than any that Granger might be able to come up with. She's a brilliant student, don't get me wrong and I'm sure she's an admirable tactician. But she is not a Pureblood nor is she a Half-Blood that was raised in the wizarding community." Seeing Harry's shoulders rise and his face turn an entertaining shade of crimson, Pansy put down her cigarette and started to speak again. "For this kind of work, it makes a difference. I know these houses, Potter, I've been visiting them since childhood and the saying about little pitchers? It's true. I'm not getting involved with your side because I believe in the Side of Righteousness, Fluffy Kittens and Sweets For All. I want my life back, I want my sister to be able to get married, I want to buy a nice house, have a nice job and go out drinking champagne on the weekends. I do not want to spend my entire adult life always reaching for a wand and watching people get hurt. And joining you seems rather the best way to go about it. I like house-elves, I do not want house-halfbloods and dead Muggles all over the place. So you can either use my tactics and win, or you can ignore them, send me home and lose. Dreadfully. Painfully. And whilst watching every Muggle in this country die a hideous death that they cannot understand."

To his credit, Pansy thought, Harry had the grace to look a little shamefaced at that. "Fine. You can stay. I'll go look at that plan now. I assume Remus sorted you out with a bed?"

"Yes. I'm sharing with Hermione, apparently. Although I have yet to see her." Pansy smiled tightly and leaned forward, her hand outstretched. "Shake on a truce?"

Harry jerked back slightly, then getting himself under control again, nodded and shoved his hand out. They shook quickly and then broke off. "She's on a mission. Should be back on Friday." He looked pale and a little nauseous.

Lupin saw Harry pale and stood up abruptly, surprising Bracewell who'd been stood quietly lounging against the cooker and sipping a mug of coffee. "Right, they'll be fine. Harry you've got plans to look over. Pansy, I found something interesting this morning that you might want to see. Hodgkiss, any plans?"

Bracewell put down his mug and smiled. "I have to go to Kings Cross and meet Mundungus. He says he knows something. I doubt he does, but he'll get affronted if I don't go." Turning to Pansy he winked. "Don't listen to Mr Grumpy Boots, lass. He's under a lot of stress."

"Thank you, Hodgkiss." Pansy smiled. "Lead on, Lupin, I do hope it's another fascinating town planning document you've got for me."

The 6th of February saw Ron and Hermione back in Grimmauld Place, both of them looking as if they'd never been clean in their lives, exhausted and only partially successful. Harry's face had visibly lightened and his shoulders lifted when he'd seen them from the window, and if Pansy was a betting woman she'd have had several thousand Galleons on Ron being the one who got welcomed back with more than a hug. Hermione had dropped her coat on the mat, untied her hair and headed straight for the bathroom, coming down twenty five minutes later a lot more refreshed, carefully picked up after herself and wandered into the library where Pansy was busy translating an Ancient Roman text sent to them by Bill, which seemed to have some arithmancy hidden in it somewhere that, if Pansy had the clues right, would give them a new way to make a building unplottable.

"I take it you aren't here to welcome me into the bosom of the Order and promise me a nice long life full of bonbons and toffee?" Pansy didn't look up as she spoke, but instead noted down a group of numbers which, if she was correct, seemed to contradict one of the more troubling formulas in Numerology and Gramatica.

"I thought I'd bring you a cup of tea instead. Bonbons rot the teeth." Hermione put the mug down just out of reach of Pansy's elbow. "Harry isn't very happy you're here, you know. He thinks you're communicating with Draco and that you're going to bring down locusts on us all."

"Locusts? Why would I bring down locusts?" Pansy looked bemused as she picked up the mug and blew on it softly.

"Never mind. It's a Biblical thing. My point is that I appreciate our need for you, and I ... well, I've been telling Harry for a while that I am not exactly the person for the job. I don't know these houses like the back of my hand. I know the theory and an awful lot about maps and cartography and when the lie of the land does not meet the eye's view. Your house for example, on the edge of the Grass Wood, if I'm not mistaken? Appears on one map from 1456 and disappears thereafter. Common reports however indicate that there is something slightly odd about the field that I assume your family home is on. But all that gives me is a theory. It's the same with all the others. I know where Malfoy Manor is, where the Goyles live, where Queenie Greengrass' mother lives, but I don't know how those houses exist in proper space." Hermione smiled ruefully. "Harry doesn't understand that. He's used to me knowing things. Blood does make a difference." The smile grew harder and Hermione laughed roughly. "I cannot believe I just said that to you."

"Oh, keep your hair on, Granger. I'm not about to repeat it. Clever deductions on my family home, however. Precisely why were you staking us out?" Pansy raised an eyebrow and slid her chair back slightly so she could rest her feet on the desk and stretch her back. "We aren't terribly interesting, as I'm sure you'll have noticed."

"We staked out all the Slytherin houses." Hermione rolled her eyes. "Harry's orders."

"Ah, the insufferable Mr Potter still cannot comprehend that a Slytherin might not be evil. He does know that Andromeda Black was a Slytherin?"

"He knows. But I don't think he really believes it. Or he thinks that she wasn't destined to be there truly and that she merely pretended she wanted to be to please her family. He has ... odd ideas sometimes."

"Ah." Pansy smiled. "Draco used to say that he wished there was a week in which every student was made to go into their opposite house to see what it was really like. I think he wanted to see the inside of Gryffindor tower. I always wanted to see the Ravenclaw common room."

Hermione tipped her head to one side and said, thoughtfully, "That might not be a bad idea. I might see if Professor McGonagall would introduce something similar when Hogwarts reopens."

"Yes, yes. Very nice." Pansy carefully swept her feet off the desk and pulled her chair back in. Taking up her quill she picked her tea mug up and drained it. "Now if you wouldn't mind, I have work to do. I think that the Trebuchet Mansion might be the next best place to start looking. The younger generations left Britain, but the place is maintained by the house elves and the late Lord Trebuchet had, shall we say, dubious connections with the underworld. The house elves are under orders to buy anything interesting that comes on the market and if any valuable items or Horcruxes, which you do realise should be Horcruces or Horcri yes? Anyway, valuable items or Horcruxes ... if they came onto the market then it seems likely that whoever had them would have known about the Trebuchet Collection, with Lucius Malfoy in Azkaban there's no real competition. Teddy's father used to try and compete, but he'd given that up by fourth year, father didn't care one whit and, well frankly, no one else is rich enough."

"Yes, I know it's supposed to be Horcri or Horcruces, one works with what one's given." Hermione laughed a little grudgingly and reached for the piece of parchment Pansy was holding out. "So the Trebuchet Manor. Isn't that in Warwickshire somewhere?"

"Near Stratford. It's disguised as a lake. Apparently when the late Lord Trebuchet was in residence the spells were so powerful people could actually fish there, despite it not being a real lake. Now, however, the distance of the family has weakened the spells and it relies on a buffer spell instead."

"Why did the younger Trebuchets leave?' Hermione frowned as she traced the line of a map and saw the arithmancy involved in the boundary spells.

"One of them fell in love with a Contessa, the other decided he wanted to train Lipizanners and the youngest decided to make a dreadful scene and run off with an elephant tamer. Apparently they're blissfully happy. Mother gets a Yule card every now and then." Pansy grinned. "It's a small world, Granger. They went to Beauxbatons, as did my sister."


	3. Problems

It was the 15th of March when Pansy truly realised just how small a world it truly was. When all her hypotheses about the Trebuchet Mansion stood up to action and event and stunned her with her knowledge of the world she'd been brought up in. She had never considered herself to be that immersed in her world. It was all she knew, but her father did business with the Muggle world on occasion, and her sister had been sent to Beauxbatons. She was part of the Pureblood elite and there was no escaping it. A small wizarding community lent itself rather neatly to only knowing a certain subsection of people, but it had been a general point of view in her house that half-bloods and Muggle-borns were necessary to the survival of that world. It was not a point ever discussed in great detail but when one's summer plans generally involved Ascot and Muggle-clothing you quickly absorbed this sort of thinking and worked with it. Besides, even Lucius Malfoy had been known to do business with Muggles, as long as he didn't have to touch them.

Because Pansy was not yet to be trusted, in Potter's words, not Lupin's - he'd been more tactful, saying it would be handy to have someone out of the field, able to advise and come up with back-up plans should they be needed, whereas Potter had cornered her in the kitchen as she was tightening a bra strap and waiting for the hot water to come through and come straight out with "For the love of Christ, do you have to do that," the 'that' coming with a gesture that could have meant fellate a goat or make tea, "in the kitchen? Oh, and also. You aren't coming on this mission. I still don't trust you" - Pansy hadn't been included on the mission. Which suited her just fine, she remembered the Trebuchet Mansion and what a phenomenal faff it was getting there if you weren't apparating straight to the entrance hall. Situations which involved that much mud and the potential ruination of good shoes were not high on Pansy's list of priorities and so she accepted, gratefully, her seclusion in the library. No back-up plan had been necessary after all, and once she'd heard the news that they were on their way back, at the apparition point now and about to come home she'd cracked open the bottle of Pouilly Fume 200ieme Vendage she'd been saving for a special occasion. They were being extra careful with apparition these days after Dean Thomas nearly got captured apparating home with only one in-between stop, and so in the three quarters of an hour between them leaving and coming home Pansy had managed to get slightly tipsy. Or tipsy enough to tell Potter exactly what she thought of him, and how he was being a fucking idiot and that if he didn't relax they were going to lose this war because one uptight leader could never hope to battle another and that his regimented thinking about allegiance, blood and house were just as bad as the fucker he was supposedly entirely against.

This was possibly not, she reflected the next morning whilst drinking as much coffee as she could face, the best course of action she could have chosen. It had all been true, certainly, but it was a fact widely acknowledged that Potter did badly with criticism and she was one of the least welcome members of the household as it was. Running in close second place was some drippy witch that Pansy vaguely remembered being in Hufflepuff and who seemed to have no immediately obvious talents bar bursting into tears every thirty seconds and hiccupping about how she was here because she wanted revenge against the people who'd killed her boyfriend. Revenge was not, in Pansy's mind, something which should be accompanied by that much sogginess. This seemed to be a fact that Hermione and Ron both agreed with given Hermione's air of distaste whenever Christiania entered the room and Ron's look of panic every time a handkerchief was produced. They had taken to leaving her in the capable hands of Lupin, who for all his faults was an adept at handling weepy women. This, Pansy considered as her head tried to convince her she had Erumpents living in it, was the only reason he seemed to be able to handle that dreadful Tonks woman who came by every now and then and made everything damp. Pansy was itching to set Christiania up with Tonks and see them happily on their soggy and handkerchief-filled way, but she doubted it would be a welcome intrusion into their lives.

"Pansy." Ron came into the kitchen, looking a little green and Pansy remembered that he'd been hitting the brandy a little hard once the wine had gone.

"Ron." She shuddered at the effect the nod had on her headache, and gestured gently towards the side. "There's fresh coffee if you want some. I was thinking about breakfast but I don't think I can."

"Oh, for the love of Merlin, don't mention food." Ron poured himself a mug of coffee and slumped at the kitchen table.

"Look, Weasley, I'm sorry I insulted your best friend. I was a little, or more than a little, tipsy." Pansy smiled slightly and pulled an apologetic face.

"You're all right." Ron laughed a little and then grimaced. "It was all true. Harry can be . . . well, a bit of a wanker. Probably needed someone to point out the similarities."

"You have grown up, Weasley," Pansy said admiringly, and reached for her cigarettes. "I don't think you'd have allowed that thought to enter your brain in school if the rumours are true."

"Yeah, well. People grow up. I've seen too much of Harry's ruthless side and unfounded idiocy to think he's the be all and end all. 'Sides, I think Percy let him know we're all Pureblood thank you very much the last time they saw each other. Guess it makes you think about people when you know they know you're one and the same with the people you're killing. My mum's cousin married a Parkinson."

"It doesn't seem to make Potter think about it. Does he realise that his father came from a long line of arrogant Purebloods?" Pansy smiled sardonically. "Because from what I hear, the Potters, before his grandparents at least, used to be among the worst for arrogance and an insistence on blood purity."

"Don't mention that to Harry. Hermione found it out once and tried to let him know and I thought he might combust out of anger." Ron returned her smile. "Look, I love the daft git, but his upbringing doesn't fit his background, and I don't think he feels it in his bones. My brother, Bill, biggest Pureblood ball of arrogance you'll ever meet. Was Head Boy and knows the whole Weasley history off by heart. Same for Perce, the berk. And I guess Charlie as well. It's just who we are. Pureblood and black sheep. But Harry doesn't get it. That he's the Potter heir. That his entire family made their money off selling and buying house-elves, that they couldn't give a fuck about Muggles or the Muggle-born until his dad's parents came of age and got married."

"I rather think," Pansy said as she lifted her coffee cup to her mouth, "that he is going to have to realise this. Quickly. He can't fight a war he doesn't understand. He needs to know that, and not just know it in a 'nod politely at McGonagall and go off and do his own thing' way, but know it. In his bones." She stopped and swallowed. "Unfortunately I don't think there is any way to make him know it. He's so resistant to the idea that everyone might actually be the same. The hat wasn't sure whether or not to put me in Slytherin, it wanted to put me in Ravenclaw. Draco is a Slytherin through and through, but it doesn't mean we don't care about people. Wanting success is not actually a measure of how many babies we like to eat for breakfast, no matter what Potter thinks."

"You miss him." Ron raised one eyebrow. "Draco. You miss him."

Pansy smiled sadly. "Yes, I do. And there's no need to sound like I'm evil for missing him. He's my best friend. He's an idiot, but he's my best friend. I know you're not going to believe this, but he isn't fighting in this sodding war because he really believes all Muggle-borns are evil. He's fighting because he loves his father and he wants to make him proud of his son. Which is ridiculous because Lucius doesn't have a sentimental bone in his body and is never actually going to be proud of Draco. But there's no telling him that."

"For somebody who doesn't think all Muggle-borns are evil, he did a good job of pretending." Ron's face was stony, and his hands were gripping his coffee cup like a vice.

"Oh, for the love of Circe, Weasley. We were eleven. Draco had never actually met a Muggle-born before then. He was eleven years old and repeating what his father had said to him. After that it was just fun because it got a rise out of Potter." Pansy shook her head. "Honestly, you three always did take things very seriously."

Ron looked a little bemused. "People were trying to kill our best mate a lot of the time."

"I do know that, Weasley." Pansy exhaled heavily. "I just meant that school was also supposed to be fun. Pick-up Quidditch in the snow. Midnight raids on the kitchens. Taunting Nearly Headless Nick or Sir Cadogan. The Room of Requirement." Pansy's voice on the last was lascivious and Ron began to blush.

"We used the Room of Requirement," he protested.

"Yes. For DA meetings. How dreadfully imaginative." Pansy raised one eyebrow and half-smiled at him. "That room could provide anything you desired. Anything."

Ron blushed even more and drank the rest of his coffee incredibly quickly. "Right. Well. I've got to go. Things to do. People to see. Bye."

"Bye, Weasley," Pansy called after him as he left, and started to chuckle. Looking up as the door opened, she saw Lupin come in, looking a little the worse for wear.

"What are you giggling at, Pansy? And is there any more coffee?" Lupin walked tentatively into the kitchen.

"It's on the side in the pot keeping warm. And nothing much, I've just been taunting Gryffindors." Pansy smiled again, and with a flick of her wand sent her cup to the sink as she walked out of the kitchen.

May had seemed to sneak up rather on Pansy when she looked back on it. She had piles of paper and notes from the back end of March, and a few for the beginning of April, but then the snow had begun to melt on the upper Highlands and for once she was included on a mission or two and the last weeks of April had all disappeared under mud, ruined shoes, a half-decent cloak burned to ashes and three more Death Eaters flung into Azkaban. Voldemort was still at large by the 18th of May and Pansy was beginning to tire a little of the intense air of politeness that had descended on Grimmauld Place when the Weasley clan had apparated in, without a by your leave and thus with a screech from Pansy as five people had suddenly appeared in the kitchen as she was heating some soup through. For someone who had always had a house-elf on hand, being caught in the kitchen so much was beginning to worry Pansy, a worry quickly alleviated by Molly Weasley's bustling presence and slight air of condescension when Pansy happened to be caught at the stove. It was always on the tip of Pansy's tongue to remind Molly Weasley that her cousin Petronella had married a Parkinson, but she thought that the air of politeness was preferable to the burnt smell that appeared in the air every time Mother Weasley (as Pansy had taken to calling her, but only in her head) cast a hex. Or made cheese on toast. It seemed unthinkable to Pansy that someone who was used to cooking for a multitude of people should be incapable of making cheese on toast without smoking out the kitchen, but everyone, she reflected, had a flaw. Even if she wasn't entirely sure what hers was going to turn out to be.

 

 

The air of politeness was, however, quickly replaced with an air of sadness and avoidance once the 21st of May had come and gone and Pansy was sitting on the stairs crying for Greg. The mission itself had been boring and well executed and generally compliant with all of Pansy's standards for missions using her intelligence and planning. They'd apparated, in three careful jumps, to Hogwarts, and had a quiet and careful meeting with the members of the Order who were secluded there and causing Madam Pince three heart attacks a day with their careless treatment of the books, she and Ginny had had a rushed conversation about Harry and the circles under his eyes and Harry had raided the Defence cupboard for anything he thought might be useful. Then they'd gone on to some small industrial town on the outskirts of Aberdeen and encountered a group of Death Eaters who seemed to have developed a taste for tormenting Muggles in public, cast some dreadfully simple spells and one complex incantation in Czech and then gone through the damage. The damage, unfortunately for Pansy, had meant her using her wand to flip someone over, expecting them to be some ghastly Bulstrode relation who had no doubt felt her up once at a party, and had turned out to be Greg. Thorough and professional to a point, Pansy had noted down all the details, and then used her wand to clean him up, closed his eyes herself and written a letter to his family. Not, as she'd pointed out to an irate Potter, under her own name. She was, she reminded him, going to use exactly the same channels through the Ministry that they'd used for every other letter of this kind, and she found herself thanking Hermione profusely for the thought that had occurred to her in the December of last year that all families had a right to know about the dead. She had then proceeded to get blindingly drunk once back at headquarters and to cry on the steps.

"Pansy." She looked up at the sound of footsteps and wiping tears from her eyes, looked up blearily.

"Potter. How can I help?"

"Just. Shut up, all right." Harry exhaled heavily and leaned against the bottom stair newel post. "I'm sorry. About Goyle. I know he was your friend."

"Thank you, Potter." Pansy looked up gratefully and sniffed slightly. "That must have cost you a lot."

Harry tipped his head to one side. "I know what it's like to lose friends."

"He ... He never meant to get involved in it all. You know? He just wanted a nice quiet life, but he, well, he came from the sort of family where refusing wasn't really an option. I mean, Teddy got a get out of gaol free card because of his sister, but Greg ... No such thing." Pansy's voice broke and she had to rummage in her cloak for her handkerchief. "His family would have disowned him if he'd refused to fight, and he really fucking loved them."

Harry sat down on the bottom step and gave Pansy a concerned look. "Families, huh. They fuck you up all right."

"Who's been teaching you poetry?" Pansy laughed, a little hollowly, at Harry's confused look. "Forgive me, I thought you were being erudite and quoting Larkin."

"Larkin?" Harry frowned and looked abashed at the same time.

"Poet. Famous for the line 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad.' Muggle. His mother's mother was a witch." Pansy sniffled into her handkerchief and drew her cloak around her as she stood up. "Well, lovely as it has been having this chat and teaching you, of all people, about Muggle poetry, I need to brush my hair and get to work."

"Look," Harry stood up, "take the night off. Take the bloody week off. We haven't got any leads, Remus can do any translation you have left over, Hermione can be left with the arithmancy. Ginny's got the whole Penrith thing organised and I think Bracewell and, oh fuck, what's her name? That drippy Hufflepuff, you know. Anyway, she's busy with the whole Manchester planning thing. Apparently her mother's from there, so she's doing okay with the geography of it all, and we need those new blast-spells in full working order before we can go anyway. So, take some time off."

"Christiania," Pansy said as she headed up the stairs. "That's the name of the drippy Hufflepuff. And thank you. I'm not very good at time off, however. Never have been."

"Give it a go. I speak as the voice of experience on that one." Harry smiled a little ruefully and Pansy remembered a conversation she'd had with Remus about the Time Harry Went A Bit Mad. It had automatically capitalised itself in her mind, and the habit was hard to shake.

"Good night, Potter. And do tell Hermione I can see her hair from here, and that her words sounded almost authentic in your mouth." Pansy shook her head, and waved to Hermione who had the grace to poke her head out from behind the door and wave back.

After all that, and the dreadful letters she'd received from Greg's parents, carefully forwarded through her parents and a family friend, a funeral she'd had to attend in disguise and armed, and enough bad dreams to make her wish she owned a Pensieve, Pansy was allowed back on mission duty. There was no explicit procedure for this, no forms to fill or interviews to go through, just a general consensus that the person wasn't about to Go A Bit Mad Like Harry and then some plans being shoved in your hands and being told you had to memorise them by crack of moonshine and they were leaving ten minutes and a hasty cup of coffee after that. Of course it was a little difficult to shove plans into your own hands, so Pansy and Hermione had come up with an alternating system where they left the next mission's plans on the library coffee table and they each went in and picked up the one they hadn't written out. It was a high and silly point in what was becoming an increasingly distressing war and Pansy, although she would have only admitted it whilst being tortured by a Wendigo, rather looked forward to it.


	4. Departures

Unfortunately the mission of the 22nd of June hadn't turned out like the others. They'd had a somewhat stunning run of good luck, mostly brought about by shoving Death Eater Overlord #1 in Azkaban and ploughing through some of the underlings with a modified incendio. The resulting smell had been hell to get out of their clothes, but everyone was too hardened to get weepy at the sight. In the dead of night Pansy thought this was going to be a bad thing in the future and wondered if Hermione could obliviate one of those therapists she mentioned occasionally, once everyone had had a chat and possibly been prescribed some choice psycho-pharmaceuticals. She doubted, somehow, that Madam Pomfrey's concoctions were going to be very useful for people who'd had to burn people alive, in what seemed a rather ironic direction for the universe to take.

This mission had decided, all on its very own, that it was going to bring them all down to boot level again and take the world out from under their feet at the same time. The Death Eater safe-house had turned out to be inhabited by the Carrow siblings, and what had been intended to be an enter and steal mission had turned into a 'hanging by their feet over a boiling cauldron' mission which they barely escaped with their lives, and Ginny had spent several harrowing days in the hospital wing of Hogwarts with her family hovering nervously. Pansy vaguely remembered the Carrows from one of Vince's parents' parties, and she hadn't liked them as a small child. Being wheezed at by Amycus and raved at by Alecto about how her father should be ashamed of himself was not one of Pansy's fonder memories, and she distinctly recalled the look on Alecto's face as her nine-year-old self had explained that surely her father exploiting Muggles was one of the best ways to prove superiority. It had after all given her nightmares for a good three weeks.

In the end Lovegood and Longbottom had rescued them, bursting in and surprising Alecto and Amycus in the middle of a whispered conversation about what they were going to do with their prizes now they were strung up and whether or not his Lordship wanted all of them, not just Potter. Neville and Luna had come in, wands drawn and hexes flying in a display of skill that rather impressed Pansy. She remembered Lovegood as being rather good at defensive spells, but her overwhelming image of Longbottom from school was of someone whose grandmother was abysmally dressed and who obviously believed couture was not for teenage boys. Eventually they'd managed to capture Alecto, but Amycus was still at large and Potter was not happy.

He had managed to refrain from shouting too much in the relative public of the Cotswolds, but the minute they reached the train station, all of them being far too tired and muddy and distressed to even think of attempting to apparate home, he had begun to seethe in an annoyingly silent manner until Remus had firmly escorted him into the next carriage and had enough words with him that he was, if not pleasant, mildly human on the way home.

Unfortunately the second they were through the door of Grimmauld Place he had herded Pansy into the kitchen, cast a silencing charm on the room and had begun to berate Pansy.

"What the FUCK did you think you were doing sending us in there? Did you think it would be funny? Selling us out to the Death Eaters? Long term plan, was it? Thought you'd make a fool of us? Send off information to your pal, Malfoy?" Harry stood, braced against the side and screamed at her.

Pansy swallowed hard. "Fuck right off, Potter." And with that she stormed out of the door, bumping into Ron as she left. "See if you can calm him down, will you. I'm going to bed."

As she climbed the stairs, and then changed for bed, Pansy could hear Ron's low voice and Harry's somewhat more shreaky one drifting up from the kitchen. Pansy lay in bed unable to sleep and casting her mind back over the events of the day and after what felt like an eternity of tossing, turning, and irritating Christiania who had the other bed, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and crept down to sit on the bottom step.

"Harry," she heard Ron say soothingly, "Pansy isn't out to bring us down. You know that, or you should. Everyone messes up sometime. Besides, I don't think she did mess up. I think that house has some sort of weird shield around it that we couldn't detect. The Carrows have been there a long time, longer than we know about, it's not inconceivable."

"I can't believe you trust her. She's a Slytherin." Harry spat the words out and Pansy shivered on the step, wishing she'd brought her cloak down with her.

"For fuck's sake Harry." Ron sounded as if he were about to leap to his feet at any point and start hitting Potter over the head with a very large mallet. "They might not be likeable, but perhaps they aren't all bad. It's just a thought." There was a pause, and Pansy wondered if this was the point at which Harry's shoulders had moved down a little, Ron had gone to stand behind him and they were hugging. "'Sides, everyone else likes her you daft berk. Hermione thinks she's the bee's knees, Lupin said she was one of the best junior Arithmancers he'd come across in a long time, Bracewell calls her 'duck' and 'lass' and even my mother thinks she's okay."

"I just," Harry's voice cracked, "I just thought we'd be doing this alone. You, me and Hermione. I never thought we'd need so much help. And she's not even doing it for the right reasons."

"What are the right reasons?" Ron sounded tired, as if this was a conversation they'd had thousands of times. "You think Fleur's fighting because she cares about Voldemort? No, she's fighting because she wants to bring kids up in a safe world. Luna thinks Voldemort's under the command of Nargles or something, Seamus and Dean are fighting because they've never known anything else. Ginny's fighting because the bastard possessed her. Grand delusions of honour and love and righteousness aren't why anyone's fighting. Not even you. You're fighting because the fucker made sure you'd have to. Lupin's fighting to avenge Sirius. So what if Pansy's fighting because she wants the nice safe world she grew up believing in back. At least she's fighting and not putting her head in the sand."

"I can't believe we're having this conversation." Harry laughed, a trifle hysterically. "Fine. Fine. It's not her fault. I just wanted someone to blame." There was the sound of a hand slamming into the table, and then it all went suspiciously quiet. Pansy stood, carefully, and headed back to her room before she managed to overhear something she could do without picturing too vividly.

It had been, Pansy considered, a little too naive to think that everything might actually have been sorted with that conversation. She and Potter had been civil to each other at breakfast time, and Ron had been actively cheerful, but the moment they were alone in the kitchen Potter had rounded on her, continuing to accuse her of selling them out and plotting their downfall, until Pansy had finally snapped thoroughly. Something about the seething rage in her voice had finally made Potter sit down and pay attention. He was not, exactly, more friendly towards her but it seemed possible that he might have decided that her abilities overrode her family and associations. Or at least that he had realised she was of more use if she was in a nice mood, and that the best way to keep her in a good mood would be to be polite and refrain from throwing accusations her way. It was, Pansy thought, distinctly more peaceful, but something in her missed lobbing barbs at Potter. He was the only person in the whole house who didn't know how to take them. Even Christiania had managed to grow some spine and throw a retort every now and then.

The second anniversary of the Carrow mission, or That Ginormous Fuck-Up as Hermione had nicknamed it, was also the first anniversary of the death of Lord Voldemort. It was not, in truth, the end of the war - there were enough rogue Death Eaters and sympathisers out there that all the members of the Order thought they might be being fire-called for the rest of the foreseeable future, but there had been some small return to normality.

 

To celebrate, Pansy threw a party. She held it in her perfectly nice house, in North Islington, paid for the booze using her wages from her perfectly normal and nice job with the Ministry and when the clock struck midnight and the 23rd of June came around again they all raised a glass to the dead, the living and the loved.


End file.
